


The House That Black Built

by shadowscribe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Healing, Humor, M/M, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Post War, Remus Lupin Lives, Severus Snape Lives, Sirius Black Lives, Sirius likes setting things on fire, Work In Progress, and sex, do not copy to other site, house renovation, implied past Sirius Black/James Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:50:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26890171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowscribe/pseuds/shadowscribe
Summary: Somewhere between burning his mother's portrait and fucking Snivellus over the dining room table Sirius Black turns Grimmauld Place into a home.
Relationships: Sirius Black/George Weasley, Sirius Black/Hermione Granger, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Sirius Black/Severus Snape
Comments: 11
Kudos: 213





	The House That Black Built

**Author's Note:**

> First, the disclaimers: I'm not JK Rowling. I don't own Harry Potter. I'm not making any money off of this. I don't post my fanfiction anywhere but on AO3 - if you see it elsewhere, it is there without my permission.
> 
> Second: Do I need another wip? No, no I do not. However, I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a shit year. It's also my birthday week. These two points have merged together into a general attitude of "I do what I want" - and apparently what I want to do is post new fanfiction during the middle of the night. On the bright side, this is a short little piece and will probably not consist of more than a handful of chapters.
> 
> Three: This piece is mostly canon compliant. The obvious differences are that Sirius Black doesn't die in the Department of Mysteries and both Severus Snape and Remus Lupin survive the Final Battle (Fred and Tonks still die. Sorry guys.)
> 
> ...and that's all the important stuff, I think. Enjoy!

The first thing Sirius Black does when You-Know-Who is dead and the war is over – after he’s been cleared of all charges involved in the death of the Potters, the supposed murder of that fucking rat, and the attack on the muggles – is move out of Grimmauld Place. It is with a vicious sort of glee that he once again abandons his childhood home and, quite frankly, he spends more than a minute or two entertaining the idea of lighting the place on fire. He’s pretty sure that there’s enough anti-fire charms built into the place that nothing short of fiendfyre is going to actually reduce the place to ashes and he’d rather not get thrown back in Azkaban for something as ridiculous as destroying his parents’ home.

So instead, he sunnily wishes his bitch of a mother a very fond farewell, walks out the front door, and offers the bleak place an exuberant two fingered salute.

* * *

He ends up buying a penthouse flat in downtown muggle London. It costs a bloody fortune but he gets a ridiculous amount of pleasure on spending the Black fortune on something so mundane. It’s a sleek, beautiful thing of chrome and glass with a balcony high enough up to be the Minister’s box at the Quidditch World Cup. In short, it is nothing like Grimmauld. It has an enormous kitchen that he’ll – probably – never use for anything more than tea and some toast that’s about three seconds away from turning into charcoal but at least it’s pretty in a bad ass sort of way. There’s four bedrooms: the master suite – which has a bathroom with a tub that’s bigger than his fucking bed – a generic guest room and then dedicated rooms for both Moony and the Prongslet.

The first time he brings a girl home he fucks her up against the glass wall of the living room overlooking the city.

When he brings home a gorgeous little twink two days later he doesn’t even make it that far and blows the fresh-faced beauty right up against the wall next to the front door.

In short: his life is perfect and the house is perfect too.

* * *

Except the house isn’t perfect.

At first, it’s really only around the full moon that he notices it, the resentment for his abode creeping under his skin. There’s no place safe for Moony to transform here, so Sirius has to go to him. Which is all well and good until it’s five o’clock in the bloody morning and the sun’s coming up and he’s battered, sore, and maybe a might bit bloody and he’s still got to haul Moony’s ass back to Andromeda’s and then floo home (because he’s too fucking exhausted to apparate without splinching himself. And having nearly splinched off his own right buttock when he was seventeen Sirius is not keen to repeat the scenario with any other body part). 

So yeah, he hates his flat a little around the full moon. Even if that fucking beautiful tub is waiting for him to soak in when he gets back.

After that it doesn’t take much for other things to start bothering him. When he bought the place he loved the views. After being trapped in Grimmauld Place he loved being high up and able to see for miles. But after a while… well. The wind whistling around the metal and glass and stone sounds a bit too close to the sound of the wind whipping past his cell at Azkaban, doesn’t it? On any day with a decent wind it’s enough to chill him right to the core, the type of cold that not even a gallon of hot chocolate and a patronus can completely banish.

Plus, all the glass and metal may look cool but it’s not very conducive to Baby Moony coming over. Not that it matters right now, exactly, given as the cub is barely rolling over by the time this issue occurs to Sirius but it’s going to be a problem. He can tell. Teddy’s a child of a Marauder after all and Tonks had certainly been her own brand of trouble and mischief. Also clumsy as hell.

He has nightmares for an entire week about Baby Moony cracking his head open on the super modern suspended fireplace before he manages to score a threesome that, while _awesome_ , leaves him aching, worn out, and very much feeling every one of his almost thirty-nine years. Plus whatever the fuck the time in Azkaban counts for. Regardless, as enjoyable as this all is he really is getting too old for this shit (and doesn’t that hurt to admit).

So, he sends the girls on their way with a very nice morning after quickie and a slap to their rather delectable asses and then he owls his realtor.

* * *

For his second house he swings in the utter opposite direction.

His second house is a rather cute two-story cottage near the welsh coast with a large, rambling garden. The inside is all stone and wood floorings, enormous wood beams bigger around than he is, and pale plastered walls. It’s homey and comfortable and he spends the first week laying around doing absolutely nothing. The bedrooms are all there plus a study – not that he really uses it – and a sturdy stone lined cellar with outside access that makes it bloody perfect for the full moon. Recovering from running around with a werewolf all night is _so much easier_ when he doesn’t have to bloody go anywhere. The tub is smaller – much smaller – but that’s something he can live with.

He lasts a bit longer at the second house. All the way until Teddy is sitting up on his own and starting to crawl, in fact, before he wakes up one morning and wants to rip his fucking skin off. Who is he? What the fuck is he doing? He’s out in the middle of bloody nowhere, he hasn’t gotten laid in almost two months, and a ‘night on the town’ consists of walking (or apparating) down to the local pub, eating a basket full of chips, having a couple of beers while watching the latest game on the telly and then arriving back home with only a pleasant buzz – and _alone -_ before ten o’clock at night. 

It’s such a depressing realization he spends the day in bed drinking.

The next day he gets up, swallows a Hangover Cure, and owls his realtor yet again.

* * *

He tries for a compromise on the third house. It’s a townhome in a relatively quiet suburb of London. The garden isn’t huge but there’ll be plenty of room for Teddy and Padfoot to run around in when the cub starts walking and there’s a secure cellar space for Remus to inhabit if he needs or wants to during his transformation. It’s only a three bedroom, so Sirius does away with the generic guest space because, honestly, who besides Moony and Prongslet is going to visit him overnight anyway? The kitchen is a little bland but it’s certainly big enough for his occasional attempts at cooking and the living spaces are a good enough size, he supposes. He can’t quite walk to his favorite clubs and shops but it’s certainly closer than he had been at the last place.

The neighbors are pretty decent as well.

Well, he says decent, but the wife of the couple next door highly disproves of his motorcycle. He can tell. And old Mrs. Jones across the street is eighty if she’s a day but she’s a feisty bird and Sirius is pretty sure that if she gives him enough cookies and pinches his bum another time or two he’ll probably have to fuck her through the mattress. Just to be fair and all. Going by the way she eyes him he doesn’t think she’ll disagree with the idea so there’s that.

In the meantime, he takes her granddaughter out on a handful of dates and makes her come screaming all over the seat of his motorcycle with his fingers shoved up her cunt. It takes weeks for the smell of pussy to get out of the leather and Sirius whistles as he goes about his errands.

He’s not happy there, not quite, but he’s more content than he’s been in years. If nothing else, he’s legitimately sad to see it go when he moves after living there for three months.

Turns out that fucking the neighbor’s granddaughter for almost a month and then giving her the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech is not the recipe for a happy neighborhood. Mrs. Jones is _feisty_.

Also, he’s somewhat afraid that he’s mentally scarred the four-year-old that lives next door who saw a bit more of the action than he probably should have at his age. After decades in prison, on the run, or behind some of the strongest wards in Britain, Sirius has rather forgotten that people can see him when he’s in his own house and garden. The sky-high penthouse and the cottage in the middle of bloody nowhere probably didn’t help, he reflects.

So yes, it’s probably for the best that he just… moves on.

* * *

He looks at another three dozen houses, flats, and townhomes before he fucking gives up.

Nothing is quite right. Nothing feels like home. Except he doesn’t really know what home is. The last place that felt home, the house at Godric’s Hollow, is half destroyed and some sort of fucking shrine to his best mate’s death so that’s out as a fucking option.

Left with a handful of options, none of which he particularly _likes,_ Sirius ignores the problem and goes on a three-day bender of booze, bodies, and more booze.

_You have shit coping skills, mate_ , Prong’s voice echoes in his head.

_Product of my environment_ , he mocks back, just as he had. Just as he always would.

Which is how he ends up standing on the worn entry rug listening to his mother shriek like a banshee above his head.

“…fuck,” he swears and absentmindedly grounds out his cigarette on the rug. It’s not like a little ash is going to ruin the bloody thing. Frankly, he’s impressed that it hasn’t disintegrated.

“…BLOOD TRAITOR! STAIN ON MY HOUSE! A DISGRACE TO THE…”

“Oh, _shut up_ , you fucking cow!” Sirius roars, rounding on the painting. “You are dead, you foul bitch! Dead and buried and good fucking riddance! You are dead. Orion is dead. _Regulus_ is dead. I’m it. Just me. The last of the primary line of the House of Black. It ends, _right here_!” he spreads his arms mockingly and rocks back on his heels, giving the portrait a little twirl just in case she missed the point. “Well,” he drawls after a pause, “I say _end_ but really, let’s be honest _mother_ , I’ve fucked enough muggle women that it wouldn’t surprise me at all if I had a bastard or three running around out there. Halfbloods, the lot of them. Maybe even a squib or two.”

Sirius didn’t think a painting could turn that shade of puce but, hey, one learns something new every day.

“YOU UNGRATEFUL…”

He whispers the incantation without realizing it and a great, fiery hound leaps from his wand to pace back and forth in front him, pulling at his control.

For a moment he almost lets it get away from him but then, then his mouth curls into a deranged, gleeful grin that would have made dear cousin Bellatrix proud.

“Go to hell, you bitch,” he growls and turns his wand on the portrait.

His mother’s screams as the flame licks at her canvas, as the great hulking grim of fire gnaws at her frame, are some of the sweetest sounds Sirius has ever heard.

Once he cancels the spell, he all but collapses with his arms braced across his legs, head hanging down between his knees and laughs.

He laughs and laughs and laughs until great, gasping sobs rip from his chest and the last of his mother’s ashes fall to the ruined, moth eaten rug.


End file.
